Note to all you creative thinkers / circuit benders: Keep up the cool things that you do! Ignore the haters! Strive for excellence not perfection! Keep it real (LOUD)!

“The DIY community, for the large part, is made up of EE’s that understand what they’re doing and why.”

Self important nonsense. I’ll spare you my own examples of how when I was 8 I built my own treehouse out of prototyping board and logic gates.

Was the “self indulgent dead end” comment being ironic?

Sorry if this is bringing down the tone, but I don’t think intellectual snobbery, or any kind of snobbery has any place in any kind of DIY scene.

The point here is that the re-appropriation of technology, is part of a wider social movement of DIY. DJing, hacking, circuit bending, wikinomics, graffiti, whatever you like.

I’ve found myself in positions of being a spokesperson for bending and creative electronics at various points over the past few years and the challenges you’ve faced me with are crucial to consider as I move forward.

I’ve posted some of my thoughts on bending at the following address
http://casperelectronics.com/circuit-bending/
You might also get something out of this interview
http://casperelectronics.com/2008/05/09/interview-on-brian-lehrer-show-part2/

I’d like to think that you’ll find my stance on bending and electronics a little less offensive based on my writing.
I have enormous respect for electrical engineers and in no way intend to undermine the extreme deliberation and intelligence that goes into their work. I think that one of bendings’ great values is as a gateway to greater understanding of electrical theory.
I enjoy building circuits from scratch and designing simple circuits of my own when necessary. I am an absolute non purist, build, bend, design and deconstruct as necessary or desired.

One of the main driving forces (one of) is to bring the amazing medium of electronics to people who would otherwise find the medium daunting and unapproachable. This is extremely important. Not everyone has the capacity to be an EE. Many people feel that they CAN’T grasp the material. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have tons to gain from utilizing electronics.
I’ve been teaching creative electronics for several years and I use bending as a tool to introduce electronics to artists who envision electronics as something they don’t/can’t get. That was me 10 years ago. I’ve seen a transformation take place in dozens of inspired students, so I have a hard time agreeing when you say that bending is simply “a self-indulgent dead end”.
Your comparison of bending to DJing is an apt one, but I think your opinions on DJing are ones that would be passionately and aggressively argued against by countless musicians, artists, musicologists, historians, etc. so I’m not really gonna touch that one. I DO know that DJ culture has had a vast, deep impact on art and music as we know it…. More than circuit bending ever will. So in that respect it’s a flattering comparison.

There are several other points you’ve brought up that I would like to respond to..perhaps I will if this discussion continues.

One last point… My definition of circuit bending varies from Reed Ghazalas’ and many others. I don’t celebrate “anti theory” nor do I mistake lack of knowledge for creative strength.

But I realized not much later that this was a dead end and so started studying electronics.
This has lead to a career where I am now responsible for other’s well being. Ie: true social impact.

I could not have obtained that level of responsibility if I had shunned true knowledge and only continued believing I was some inspired artist.

Development of technology does not come by slightly modifying existing designs that are otherwise not understood by the tech or artist doing such mods.
That is only the domain of the self-indulgent or artistically minded individual.
It has little worth to the serious musical population and are considered toys- not serious effects, instruments or even sound effects.

In other words, it’s like being a DJ.
DJ’s don’t make their own music, they chop, sample and play other’s music.
They do this mostly because it’s far, far easier than learning how to play an instrument well.
But if everyone did this, there would be no music to source from.

Same for circuit bending.
No circuit bender ever designed the Speak n Spell or other devices circuit benders have chosen to mod.
The guys that designed that stuff knew solid electronics and indeed are supplying the circuit benders their source materials.
So circuit bending is basically derivative and non-orignal.
The only claim to originality, like a DJ, is what a bender does beyond what it was originally designed to do.
If a DJ loops a chorus 10 times, that doesn’t make them a songwriter because they changed the original format of the song.

DJ’s and circuit benders embrace their art because that’s the best they can do with what they’ve got.
It’s self-limiting and not a good path to building things from scratch nor helping society’s needs.
No circuit bender will be asked to build medical, scientific or consumer electronics.
It’s very easy to draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa.
It’s very difficult to paint the painting under that mustache.
You’ll notice that there’s few paintings out there with just mustaches.

Finally, I do not believe circuit bending is truly part of the DIY community at all.
The DIY community, for the large part, is made up of EE’s that understand what they’re doing and why.
Many design their circuits from scratch with discrete components.
With that, they have choices.
They can make their circuit do what they want and package it however.
They have more artistic freedom and ability to build vertically on their creations.
Knowledge is power.
No one can convince me that circuit benders are providing any truly measurable impact on socialism, pollution, commerce or any other tangible issue.
It is part of the denial they share when defending their work as meaningful or important.
It’s an attempt to validate what society, musicians, consumers and engineers on the whole don’t find useful.

Really… it’s a self-indulgent dead-end.
My 2 cents.

Cain, Sorry I should have given better directions.

Dogboy,
I write this comment with some hesitation because these defensive sorts of interactions are usually silly. BUT i just can’t resist some response.
I have some issues, well lots of issues with circuit bending culture, how it’s perceived and mostly what is produced. I think a lot of it is very silly or shallowly novel, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a collective movement with trackable impact and effect. one can legitimately talk about the social impact of anything.. ketchup packets vs ketchup dispensers in McDonalds….uh sneakers with LEDs in them that flash when you walk. The validity is in the argument they make not the mere subject matter.
My stance is that circuit bending is part of a larger DIY electronics movement. It plays a valuable role in this movement by encouraging people to utilize pre-existing devices and to derive new functionalities from these devices. As far as social impact goes, I’m not talking about screeching dolls changing the world. The fact that people are making screeching dolls is much more noteworthy than the dolls themselves. It indicates a movement towards re-evaluation of the resources we have available to us and new kinds of consideration and appreciation for materials which are fast overflowing our landfills.
I invite any response or none at all.

Puleeze.